"Five Stories" is a selection of five short stories by New Orleans writer, Austin Nieli. The stories belong to a manuscript currently in progress titled "Close Friends". Stories range from tales of everyday madness, to surrealism in the forgotten sense of the word. The characters found in the book are written in a cynicism so elaborate that it becomes impossible to not believe they once existed, while others disclose genuine attempts at capturing ecstatic joy and the amazement of a world which often only children are permitted entry to.